Surge in migrants gaining British citizenship adds to passport crisis

RECORD numbers of migrants setting up home in the UK are contributing to the passport crisis facing Brits, it has emerged.

Theresa May has been slammed for not tackling 500,000 passport backlog[GETTY]

A record 207,989 foreigners were last year given the right to live in the UK – compared to just 82,000 in 2000.

Their requests for papers are now said to be contributing to the crisis in the Passport Office, which is currently struggling to clear a backlog of 500,000 applications.

Today it emerged that Border Force staff are being redeployed to help clear the backlog.

However that has raised fears about the security operations within the UK as well as tens of thousands of people set to miss their summer holidays.

Queues had already built in Durham by 11am yesterday [SWNS]

Two million migrants have been awarded citizenship in the UK since 2000 and now many of them are applying for a British passport.

That involves hefty paperwork and face to face interviews.

Alp Mehmet of Migration Watch said: “The moment you become a British citizen you can get a British passport and I suspect many of those 207,000 will have and that is something that adds to the difficulties.”

Last week Home Secretary Theresa May announced that Passport Offices would open longer hours in a bid to clear the backlog.

Home Secretary Theresa May has refused to say sorry for her shambles. She needs to get a grip, take responsibility and put this right

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper

Prime Minister David Cameron said that there were at least 30,000 passports which had not been processed within the three-week accepted timescale.

Now an internal email within the Home Office has apparently called for Border Force staff to help out processing passports for up to six weeks in which staff can claim unlimited overtime.

This room in Liverpool's passport office has been used as an overflow for thousands of passports [PA]

The Border Force claims the temporary transfer will have “no impact” on security or other operations however Commons home affairs committee chairman Keith Vaz said shifting frontline staff would be "wholly unacceptable".

Labour MP Mr Vaz said: "It would be wholly wrong to transfer any frontline officers from the important work they do in the Border Force, where they are securing the borders of this country, to an office just to clear a backlog.

"We do not want a repetition of the scenes that we had at our ports because staff have been redeployed.

"This attractive offer of unlimited overtime will mean staff are not concentrating on the important job they have, which is to secure the borders.

"Rather than redeploying staff from critical areas they should be seeking to recruit new staff and give people a realistic timetable for dealing with this."

The situation has provoked a fierce parliamentary row with Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper saying: "Home Secretary Theresa May has refused to say sorry for her shambles. She needs to get a grip, take responsibility and put this right."

Central London's passport office. Theresa May said the backlog was down to a surge in holidaymakers [PA]

Applicants can able to pay £55 to fast-track their paperwork to ensure it arrives on time – on top of the £72.50 standard fee.

Mrs May has now said urgent travellers who sent their application off more than three weeks ago can have free access to fast-track passport processing, which normal costs £55.

She said despite a surge in applications the "overwhelming majority" of straightforward cases were being dealt with within the normal three-week time limit.

Exhausted Passport Office workers have even burst into tears as they try to wade through the excess.

One unnamed worker said: "We are just worn out, really worn out, and it's been going on for far too long. A woman in my team burst into tears because of the pressure."